For my European friends!

Thank-you so much for the kind notes you have been sending; Here is a tiny sneek peek at the brand new clear album class we will be doing at Akke Fietje in Eindhoven on Sunday March 2nd ( still a few spots available!) and at Scrapbookmate in Amsterdam on Monday March 3rd. Think cool ideas for using clear products, different sized pages, beads, fabric, stitching, office labels, plenty of sparkle and some colored duck tape.

I will be back to say more soon!

Gettting so excited to see you all :)

ETA: I will also be in Chepstow on the night of Thursday March 6, I have never been to Holland or the UK before so I am just super excited to take it all in and meet all kinds of new people along the way :)

Rock Star

I looked up from the table and saw this little face just there peering over her party glasses at me, all sassy and serious.
What a kid!

Sometimes you just have to let yourself feel like a Rock Star!!!

Baby Kewl

I finished up one more page with the Feb Cocoa Daisy kit this past week. I had so much fun telling the story of my little super hero LOL! Her hand and foot were cut off in the photo so I made some new little cartoon ones and I have her popping off the page ready to save the day! She was really into "saving the day" for awhile, even her pink winter boots now are still her "super boots"

She is so funny!

I really love the way this new thickers alphabet look almost Sugar coated...so yummy. And these are a brand new CHA release so they are not available in stores yet. I added silver leafing to the edges of these Maya Road flourishes... in Love with these things...love that they add the swoosh I need but are still see thru. These little notebook papers are quickly becoming a favorite as well!

Here are a few close up peeks at the details.

seeing life

Life is full and life is busy, it just is.

That will not change

I can't imagine that it would all of a sudden slow down just for me.

I think that "slow down" is a choice,

I think it is a part of how we each choose to take it all in ,

how we choose to see our life.

What kind of eyes do you want to see your life through?
Rushing by

with eyes too focused on wherever it is that you are going

and a mind full of what is on your list of "to do"?,

or

do you choose to be present NOW, in this very moment right where you are?

seeing clearly the gift of it all;

each breath,

each shared day with little people,

or big people,

or just the peace of sunshine and wonderful fresh air.

Life is full and busy,

it just is

but we always have a choice.

photos taken by my good friend Krista Domres- Paris 07

just so I can remember

Baking together this morning and She looks up at me out of nowhere and declares

" my only wish in the world would be hmmmmmm......two things..." holding up two little fingers
" to stay home with you mama, everyday, forever and ever......aaaaand to eat cheese!"


-Tiara 6 years old
(lactose intollerant)

We are busy making these cookies for Em's birthday http://sundaynitedinner.com/chewy-chocolate-chunk-oatmeal-cookies/
yummmm!

ETA: I am loving all of the sweet littles you guys are telling me about! I quickly blogged this moment so that I could have it here to remember, but all of your comments and wonderful little moments have given me extra smiles! just makes my day, thanks:)
And the cookies turned out INCREDIBLE! what a great recipe. We cut up the skor chunks into the ones that "T" wouldn't be eating and I think I have a new favorite, mmmmm!

one more little gift

Here as promised, is another set of instructions for you; like a little "takeout" class. Once again, a fairly large file so may take a few minutes to download.

It was lots of fun putting these together and I hope some of you can take a few ideas from here and have some fun with them!!!

This is a great solution for those folks who have told me about living in remote areas where you can't get to classes or a local scrap store. The kit comes in the mail and everything you need to know is in the instructions. Keep an eye out for online classes and tutorials too, they can be a real treasure when you can't get to a location that offers classes in person.

On another note check out what Kelli Crowe did with the kit! I just adore her super cute and whimsical style. She is so much fun.

Have a great friday!

Happy Love day!!!!

Hope you have a great day sharing kindness and a smile with the folks in your world. Here's my little card for Cam, I think I might add it to a page later on, I could definitely do more layouts about him.

and my little valentine gift for you is a few PDFs to download with the step-by-step instructions for 3 of the projects I did with my Cocoa Daisy Feb. kit. You can print them out to have as a reference if you like, or just use them online. Hope you get a few ideas and have fun!

note: the files are pretty big so they may take a few minutes to download

Faith Canvas

Pixie Tin Album

one more coming soon!

Fonts on sale

Just wanted to pop by and mention the font sale at scrap'n'fonts. It is over tomorrow and there are two of mine on sale for $1 each right now. Chocolate Sundae is one of the ones I like best from the bunch that I had done awhile back. Lots of other great fonts too on for $1 if you browse.

have a happy day!

the earrings

I was talking about the earrings the girls were making on my "day of rest" post last Sunday. Not sure anyone noticed once they read how cold it has been around here LOL, but I promised pictures of them so here they are. Just little because their ears are just little, but to them they feel like big beautiful "danglies"

They both have been wearing them proudly ever since, so cute.

It's such a fun kid project ( or big kid too ;) for that matter) Just made by bending some hardware wire, adding beads ,shells, buttons...whatever, and attaching to earring hooks.

mindset: digi vs paper

I love this whole little series of glue dots lines and swirls by Jenn Patrick, but it always gets me thinking about how differently I look at things depending if I am paper scrapping or digi scrapping. When I am making everything by hand I want to hide the glue as best as I can, I never dream of hanging it out there as part of the design and just embracing it's "glueyness". But then I happen to love these as a digital product and I do hang them out because they help it to feel "real" funny how that goes. It just makes me think once again how I grow as an artist by playing with different mediums, letting the things that I love and learn from each affect the way I tackle the others. Maybe I need to embrace a little bit of glueyness and just let it hang out on my next paper page?
Goodness knows it would be easier!

That also gets me thinking, while I am on the subject; about how very different one person's "styles" can be.
Me for example- I love paper, I love digi, and I reeeally love to mix it all up. But I feel like my look, my style, on an all handmade project is very very different than the look or style of my all digi projects. That is OK, it's just fine...all a part of the creative journey I think. I am always growing, evolving and changing what I do and that is part of the fun.
I often stop and ask myself, "what would I do if this was paper?", or "what would I do if this was a digi page?" and that has helped me to grow so much in each art form. It makes me want to play with other things , try more, learn more.

just thinking.

any interesting thoughts on the different mindset of digi VS paper scrapping?
or the different style you might have when trying either?
where are you most comfortable?

day of rest

Today was indeed a day of rest; it was nice

with Cam gone, the girls and I spent a quiet day INSIDE! The weather here was just insane yesterday with the windchill it was -47C ( for you "USA'ers" as Inara says; that is -52.6F!) and for those who often ask me how we even head outside for some fresh air, above is a visual for you of the local "uniform"

The day we took those pics it was a wee bit warmer though, when it's this cold it just hurts. No adventures needed.

Today we put on our favorite tunes and spent the afternoon making earrings together. I love how the girls each put their own personalities into their earnings. Tiara's were small with gentle colors and tiny shells, and Emy's were happy and super fun with a rainbow of colors and little red buttons. I will add a few photos of their adorable ears when they are awake tomorrow.

Hope you can find rest no matter the weather, it's just good for the spirit.

colourful you

Still playing with this kit. I am like a kid in a candy store, seriously I love it!

I have been working on this little album for Kaiella using Hambly heavy overlays and my little painted "colorful you" cards . The overlay pages are thick enough to make this book really durable, but still workable enough that I was able to cut them to be just slightly larger than my cards and round the corners; totally on my list of top ten products for sure!!! and The cards are ready-to-go little pages just add journaling!

the photos all overhang so that they "peek" out

The handle is made from lacing my leftover embroidery floss through the two buckle ups

And this is the little tin it lives in :)There are so many cool things you can do with candy tins like this, I adore them! but for this project mine is just a fairly simple little case for the book. I really wanted the book to be the star :)

Here is the inside

and a here's closer look at the bottom. Once again super simple but happy, and really fun to do; buttons are "glossed" in there using making memories clear glaze. :)

and that's it!

Have a great start to your week

One for the man

This great guy of mine does everything with us in mind and never asks for anything for himself. Living with 4 girls can be tiring and dramatic I am sure but he faces every bit of it with a smile and makes our world a lighter brighter place.
So, tomorrow I will NOT be leaving on a jet plane for winter CHA in California as originally scheduled. To those I was planning to meet with or just meet up with, we will be in touch soon. I wish you all a very fun few days...the winter show is super huge and so exciting! I will miss it but I know there will always be more.  

There was a last minute change of plans and I decided to stay here at home when I found out there was an opportunity to send Cam away.
HA! sounds like I was trying to get rid of him, no, truth is I would spend everyday with this guy if life let me.  There never seems to be anything really great that I can do that is truly for him though, so when I got wind of the opportunity I knew just what we had to do. I love this photo of Cam and Kaiella having a goodbye in the driveway as we sent him off on his surprise adventure with 3 of his friends- A ski trip to Banff ( The Canadian Rockies), a guys getaway...no worries about taking care of us, just mountain air and lots of fun.
He deserves it 100 times over :)

Anyone else out there planning any valentines day surprises, big or small???
have a great weekend

photo of the week

In the van driving home; she was so so proud of her little book. A good one for her to keep handy :) Sensory stuff has been at an all time high for our little Tiara after Christmas break; we are working through it with earning points towards a new animal Ark book that she wants, and just being extra sensitive to her slower more personal timeline when getting places, but it is hard watching her struggle.

Hard to know just what to do.

We all need to have something that stills our storms, whatever that may be, at our house this is what works for us. So when I was loading the memory card this photo just made me smile

I think I will frame it for her.

Hope life is smooth sailing wherever you are!

pixie tin album

Here is another little project I have been working on with my Cocoa Daisy kit for February.

This one is for Emilea, for her birthday ( good thing she doesn't read my blog!) It is a little circle book in a tin called "I love you because..."

There are 8 different "reasons" why I love her, with 8 coresponding photos.

So easy to make and so special to give!

You can flip the book so that whichever photo you like shows through the front window of the tin.

and except for the bling circle which is in one of the add-on packs, it uses all products from the main kit

I Started with this cute little palm sized tin of tiny Prima flowers and used the acrylic circle from one heart one mind as a template to trace out my photos and pages (below). It fits just right inside with a bit of room to tuck in the strip of fabric holding the book together.

note: another night time photo above, working again with only one lamp on.

I have been taking lots of photos of the steps for these projects to include in the instructions that come with the kit. It was taken as described on the canvas post below :)

Happy weekend my friends!!!

more creating!

more fun with my kit.

This one is a page for my Emy who really is growing up so very beautifully. I could have filled the entire page with writing, but sometimes a little says a lot y'know what I mean? The stickers say " you grow in true beauty"

and that she does; inside and out. She really is a gift to us all every day.

My process for this page was a little bit different than usual....possibly could be considered a bit backwards, but it came together in the end.

-I started ripping the basic grey paper into little torn flower circles and layering it with the fancy pants pink felt ( note: you can email Tricia if you want a sheet of the pink felt added to your kit order, it is not specifically pictured on the site), layered it with the Autumn Leaves vintage buttons, and the fun stacker buttons from the kit and fastened them all together

- I coiled some stainless steel hardware wire into stems and ripped patterns out of some of the sassafrass lass papers for trim. Then made "grass" with the paper from the included 12x12 cardboard

- Once I was done rolling with all of that ( it was kind of a creative explosion that all happened in about a half hour...got to love that!) then I had to find a photo or story to go with the design I had started. It is definitely easier for me to design around a story or photo that I have in mind ahead of time than to find a way to fit it in later, but it is fun and refreshing to to change it up sometimes! I always love that there is no wrong way when it somes to creativity :)

here is a closer peek at my "grass" and wire stems

interview

Hey there, Just wanted to give a heads up that I did an interview recently for Scrap Girls and it is out in today's newletter. they asked some great questions.

you can read it here

Just scroll down untill you see Me!

That photo was taken by Candace Stringham, she is the super talented photo expert for Creating Keepsakes

Have a fabulous Friday!